Headless Horseman Hayrides and Haunted Houses in Ulster, NY

October 5th, 2009

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I was really looking forward to this stop on the Tour after hearing so much about it and watching the videos on the internet. Michael and Nancy Jubie are the owners and they produce a terrific Halloween event with a Haunted Hayride and five different walkthrough haunts.

The first thing that is clear when you arrive at the Headless Horseman Hayride and Haunted Houses is how beautiful the property is. The gentle hills, the wooded areas and the small lake are truly stunning and make you wonder how the the hell they ever decided to haunt such a gorgeous piece of land. But, to their credit, they didn’t just create a Haunt – they have created a location and Halloween event that is so good that it has become a tradition for many and becomes a tradition for even more every year for people from around the country.

When you enter the property, you walk through a small village of colonial style buildings with a variety of gifts and goodies including a coffee shop with baked goods (sorry Scott no cupcakes with bacon here). I’ll call it a Halloween village because that is what it feels like; it has so much atmosphere and ambiance that you immediately get into a Halloween state of mind.

Michael was kind enough to run me around the property so I could take some photos and give you an idea of what the show is like (see the images below) and besides appreciating the event, I got to listen to Michael’s stories about the property and how and why they do things the way they do.

The first wagon leaves about 7:00pm and I went ahead and got a good seat on an early wagon and went out on the Hayride. Each wagon has an actor serve as narrator throughout the trip to give you story details and plot highlights as you pass scenes. Our narrator did a fantastic job and made the trip a lot of fun. The theme of the hayride changes from year to year and this year has a bodyfarm theme (think biochemical zombies). The scenes were great with a great mix of gore, set design and illusions. The juicer illusion was especially effective and our wagon loved it. Its harder to scare people on a hayride than a haunted house, but Headless does a good job of bringing actors up close to the wagon in a few different ways to make the scares up close and personal. Of course the highlight of the wagon ride is when the Headless Horseman rider approaches the wagon which the wagon absolutely loved.

After the hayride we were dropped off at the first of five walkthrough haunts, Slaughterhouse. This is a traditional walkthrough with a slaughterhouse theme, but headless puts a twist on it by issuing small flashlights to the the guests – some of them work and some don’t. The haunt is dimly lit so if your flashlight doesn’t work then you will be in the dark. I liked the idea and so did the guests I was with since it made some great scares and was a change to the usual walkthrough too. After the Slaughterhouse, we went through the Dark Harvest Corn Maze and then the Night Shade Nursery and Greenhouse.

As if a hayride and three walkthroughs weren’t enough, you then get to go through two additional haunted houses, The Feeding and Dahlia Blood. The scenes in all the haunts were well done, but the scenes in these las two haunted houses were some of the best I have seen and I immediately thought of Disney when I saw how good they looked.

Headless Horseman is really a special place that gives you a full night of fun and scares. Michael and Nancy do such a great job of creating a Halloween festival atmosphere that it is obvious why people travel from around the country to visit this event.

Thank you Michael and Nancy for your time and hospitality. I enjoyed your show and enjoyed spending time with you even more. I look forward to seeing you again.